


Worlds Apart

by Cowboy_Sneep_Dip



Category: Fire Emblem Series, Fire Emblem: If | Fire Emblem: Fates, Fire Emblem: Kakusei | Fire Emblem: Awakening
Genre: Amnesia, Dimension Travel, F/F, F/M, Fire Emblem Fates: Birthright Spoilers, Fire Emblem Fates: Revelation Spoilers, Fire Emblem: Awakening Spoilers, Grief/Mourning, Grima!Inigo, M/M, Violence, implied Corrin/Azura
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2017-11-25
Updated: 2017-12-24
Packaged: 2019-02-06 17:27:13
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death
Chapters: 2
Words: 3,347
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12822444
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Cowboy_Sneep_Dip/pseuds/Cowboy_Sneep_Dip
Summary: The Fell Dragon lives...Laslow, bereft of his Lord and his lover, copes with his grief and discovers a power that will alter the shape of the world - not just his own, but worlds across the vastness of space and time. At the same time, the young King Leo struggles to contain a new threat. Shimmering soldiers appear from gaps in the air, plaguing the already beleaguered nation of Nohr and plunging the weakened army into another war. And in the midst of these, a girl appears with naught but a handful of fragmented memories and an impossibly powerful sword.





	1. Prologue: Despair and Hope

**Author's Note:**

> Hoo boy. Uh, okay, so bear with me on this one. It's an attempt to coalesce three story ideas I've had into one big one, so it might be a bit of a mess until I set up all the groundwork. 
> 
> Oh, and the spoiler warnings are the real deal. The prologue of this fic will spoil the end of Birthright and large chunks of Awakening, plus I can't imagine this making much sense if you haven't played FEA. 
> 
> Anyway, I hope you enjoy regardless! I supported my Corrin and Lucina in Heroes and now want to make actual content for them. Also I just finished Awakening and am now obsessed with writing characters that have Fell Dragon Blood, so uh...expect more of that I guess.

 

Inigo stared at the blood pooling on the hard stone floor. It was an elegant chamber, the vast riches of an entire kingdom congealing in this one castle – pillars inlaid with precious metals, jeweled candelabras adorning the walls. It seemed so fitting a tomb for his liege. No, not his liege. Not just.

He slumped to his knees, staring, his eyes vacant, his heart sunk with disbelief. In that moment he was not Laslow, retainer to the crown prince of the kingdom of Nohr. He was not mercenary, hero, beloved guard captain and trusted confidante. He was Inigo, a boy lost in time and space, a boy whose chest still ached for his mother. She, too, was gone. As was his father.

He stared at his trembling hands, then looked from his own palms to the perpetrator of such a heinous crime.

Corrin, too, stood in stunned silence, scarcely believing his own eyes. His brother, dead by his hand, not long after his dearest sister. Both armies watched with bated breath, uncertain what the young prince would do.

He sheathed his sword slowly, not bothering to wipe the blood from its blade. He stood, letting Xander’s body fall to the floor, unceremoniously splashing in his own blood. “I…I suppose we have to keep going. It’s what they would have wanted. If I stay here crying, Xander would have g-gently scolded me…” the young prince gathered himself up and returned to his army.

Inigo wanted to scream. To yell and rage, frothing and boiling as inconsolable grief and despair welled within him. It wasn’t right. It wasn’t _fair_. His grey bangs flopped in front of his eyes, hiding his tears.

He balled his hands into fists and pressed them into the tile floor. What did Corrin know? Know of Xander? Of what he would have wanted? Nothing. Inigo was the one who spent every day by his side. Every waking minute with him. This imposter prince was nothing but a traitor – a liar, a murderer.

Inigo felt so small, so very far from home. Even if he could make it to the Dragon’s Gate, there was no guarantee that he could even return. He abandoned everything – his home, his friends, his family – and for what? To protect this whelp, this half-bred coward. He clenched his teeth.

Xander was his home now. And that, too, had been ripped from him.

He gasped out a choking sob, heedless of the tears streaming down his cheek. The world felt muffled and mute. He crawled forward on hands and knees, slipping on the blood, desperate to clutch at Xander’s corpse, now growing cold. He cradled his body, weeping. He looked up to shout after Corrin, though he knew the prince and his entourage had gone.

“COWARD!” he screamed into the air, his own voice weak and strained. “COME BACK HERE!” He pressed Xander to his chest. “Xander…” he sobbed. The blood felt slick and warm. He lifted a trembling, blood-soaked hand and stared. It tingled. Not just tingling, no – a burning sensation. A searing heat on the back of his palm. He dropped Xander and clutched his hand in pain.

His head pounded. It felt like his skull was cracking open. Bolts of pain rippled through his head and he collapsed to the ground, writhing and clutching himself. It was as if it was too much – the grief and pain did him in, melting his brain into a soupy paste that dripped out his ears. He cried, and through he gasping breaths he begged for his mother.

He felt so incredibly lonely. It was one thing to be homesick for a town far away, or a country across the sea. His home was across a sea, true, but the sea of time and space was insurmountable. There was no return for him, not without some form of divine intervention. And he had failed in his mission. To protect Corrin – it was all for naught.

Another blast of pain struck his head and he curled tighter.

Suddenly, through the fog of pain and despair, a voice came to him. Gentle, calming, soothing. Like a sea breeze on a warm summer day.

_My son…_

He uncurled slowly and cautiously. He was not in the halls of Nohr anymore, but instead a yawning black void. A figure stood before him, robed and elegant. The figure reached up his hands and dropped his hood.

“F-father!” Inigo gasped, scooting backwards in surprise.

“Yes, in a sense,” his father smiled. It was a face that Inigo hadn’t seen in many long years, and the smile made his heart ache for home.

“Father, what are you doing here?” Inigo scrambled to his feet and wiped his eyes. “Wh…where even _is_ here?”

“That’s not important right now,” his father said, stepping forward and taking his hand. “I am here, and you are here. That is what matters.”

“Oh…oh, father…” Inigo threw his arms around him and buried his face in his shoulder. “I’ve missed you so much. You and mother both. And little Morgan, and-“

“I know,” the white-haired man cut him off. “I know. And we’ve all missed you as well.”

Inigo took a step back, composing himself. “What’s going on? Why am I here?”

“Inigo, my son…would you like to come home?”

“More than anything, Father. I miss the sunlight. I miss Ylisse, and my family.”

“Would you like revenge?”

“R…revenge?” the question gave him pause.

“Against the boy that murdered your precious Xander. The young ungrateful prince who you dedicated your life to and who stole away what you hold most dear.”

Inigo balled his hands into fists. “I…”

“I know what you feel, Inigo. I feel it too.” The void suddenly felt cold, a chilly sensation creeping across Inigo’s arms and making him shiver. He looked at his father.

The man’s face looked different. Beneath each eyeball was a black tattoo of more eyes, tracking down the side of each cheek. When he blinked, all of the eyes blinked at once.

“Revenge…” Inigo muttered.

“He will defeat Garon, that much is certain. And when Garon falls, so too does Nohr. I have seen the future and know it to be so.”

A blast of pain struck Inigo and he clutched his head. A vision flooded his eyes. Towns burning, overrun by bandits. Armies of shimmering violet soldiers storming the streets, cutting down any in their path. A sky blackened with smoke and ash. Corpses of friends – Severa and Owain, slain. Peri, dead in a mound of corpses. Camilla and Beruka, gone as well. It was a hauntingly familiar vision.

 _The future past_ …

“Wh…what are you showing me?” he gasped.

“A vision of things that will come to pass if you do not stop him.”

“Corrin?”

The figure nodded. His face was darker now, his features obscured behind a veil of shadows. His eyes glowed with a pale red light.

“I-I-I don’t understand,” Inigo stammered.

His father lunged forward, startling him. He grasped Inigo’s shoulder. “He will topple Nohr – in the wake of Garon’s death, the nation will crumble to ruin, and that weakness will invite horrors the likes of which you can scarcely imagine.” The figure tilted his head. “No, you…you can imagine it. You’ve seen it before.”

Inigo nodded, breathless, his head spinning. “What would you have me do?”

“Take my power, son.” The figure reached out to him, extending a hand. Inigo could see a mark on the back of his hand, a black symbol, now glowing with a faint violet light – the same six-eyed icon adorning his face. “Take this power, and use it to set this world right again.”

“I…I don’t…” Inigo hesitated.

“You have it within you already. The blood of the Fell Dragon courses through your veins. Only a dragon can slay another dragon. And I trust the reminder of what he is capable of is still fresh in your mind?”

A vision of Xander’s corpse flashed in Inigo’s mind. Elise, too. Another needless casualty in a senseless war. The power to stop such death…

He gritted his teeth and reached out, clasping the figure’s hand.


	2. A New Arrival

Lucina fell out of the sky.

She felt herself slam into a tree branch on her way down, an ‘oof!’ being punched from her lungs. She tried to grab the branch and slipped, hitting a second branch as she fell. She collided with the ground heavily with a blast of pain tearing through her skull. She groaned, staring up at the canopy of trees above her. Beyond the tangled web of bare branches, she could see the night sky. The stars twinkled, somehow unfamiliar even after all the time she had spent gazing at them.

She sat up, clutching her head. She touched the back of her head, checking for blood. All good there.

Her clothes were worse for wear, the scrabbling fingers of the branches above having ripped and torn at her cape and dress. Ultimately, though, her wounds were superficial. Satisfied, she pushed herself to her feet.

_What was I doing?_ She peered again at the treetops. _Climbing trees? No…_

She winced and pressed a hand against her forehead. Either the fall had done more damage than she thought, or she was failing to remember some crucial piece of information. At any rate, she decided, she needed to get moving. It was dark, and a forest at night was probably the worst possible place to run into any risen.

She stepped lightly and briskly through the wooded underbrush, making her way to a wooded trail. As she did, her empty sheath bounced against her leg. She looked down at it, frowning.

_A sword?_ She remembered a sword being important.

Lucina wasn’t entirely sure where she was, either. She rubbed her temples as she followed the trail, trying in vain to remember what she had been doing. Something about…a dragon? She shook her head.

The forest was dark and twisted, thick roots and thornbushes twisting back and forth on the trail. The air even felt heavier here, and the longer she followed the trail the deeper the darkness seemed to become. Before long, she could scarcely see the stars through the tangled canopy above.

There was something else strange about it that she couldn’t place until she paused for a moment to rest.

There was sound.

Chirping crickets, fluttering wings. The sounds of life. It had been so long since she had heard the rustle of cicadas in the night. She sighed. Wherever she was, it must have been remote enough to avoid the touch of Grima’s wrath, for the time being.

 She grimaced as her boot plunged into a thick mire of mud. It made a wet suction sound as she tried pulling her foot out, only to have her other foot sink in as well. She growled.

Something else growled, too. She looked up. _Risen?!_

No, they sounded different. It was a low, rumbling moan. She peered into the darkness between the trees. Shapes moved slowly, shambling in the shadows.

She crouched to tug at her boots. “Come on, come on,” she muttered quietly. No sword was already a handicap, but if she were attacked while stuck in the mud…

With a squelch she pulled herself free and stumbled backwards towards a tree root. She leapt onto it, balancing by wrapping an arm around the tree’s thick trunk. She tried to look again for the source of the growling.

A shape emerged from the forest. Something wholly unfamiliar. A muscular, humanoid beast whose face was encased in a black iron mask. It shambled slowly, dragging it’s massive arms along the ground. Lucina stared at it.

Not a Risen, no. Unless it was a new form. Either way, she was defenseless. She crept along the edge of the mire, hoping to avoid any sort of conflict. Fortunately, it seemed less interested in her than it was in splashing through the mud loudly.

_Where am I?_ Lucina ran through the possibilities. Plegia was too dry, so that was out. Ferox was too cold for such a humid swamp, and she knew Ylisse too well. Valm, maybe? She had never been, so that was perhaps it.

 

-

 

By the time Lucina emerged from the forest, she felt like the walking dead. The forest seemed to have some unpleasant quality to it, almost like the air itself was sapping her strength. Other than the first encounter with the monster, she hadn’t run into anyone else. No hunters, no beasts, no animals. As she stumbled out of the underbrush, gasping with relief, she spied a small village situated along the forest’s edge.

It was a poor village, primarily wooden huts and dirt roads, but it was civilization. And, most remarkably – it was intact. She stared in awe.

Lights were on in the windows of houses. A few people tottered back and forth along the street, minding their own business. Music spilled from the open windows of a tavern, as did the smells of roasting meat and stale alcohol.

She dropped to her knees in the street, unable to comprehend what she was looking at.

Had Valm been spared Grima’s wrath, somehow? Was this village protected by the forest? Her mind raced, all thoughts drowned out by the single overwhelming desire to plunge herself into the fountain and drink what looked to be clear, clean water. She knelt at the fountain, crying, scooping the water up to her mouth with her hands. It had been so long since she had tasted clean water. Everything had been tainted by Grima – the rivers ran dark with ash and the lakes were muddy and toxic. This, though…she laughed, splashing herself, heedless of the villagers passing back and forth, whispering and pointing.

Blinking back tears, she got to her feet. Food! Real food! She bashed open the door to the tavern and rushed the bar, slamming her soaked forearms down onto the counter. “I’ll take one of everything!” she shouted, her disbelief outweighing her embarrassment.

Surely this was a dream, at any rate.

The barkeep looked up from the glass mug he was scrubbing and gave her a curious look. “Wot you say?”

“One of everything,” she said again, breathless. She pointed down the bar at the other patrons’ food. “A bowl of stew, a loaf of bread, a hunk of that cheese, uh...two of those sausages, that fish steak, one of those salads, and a steak sandwich.”

The barkeep looked at her, frowning.

“Ya got money to pay for all of that, miss?”

Lucina felt her heart shatter. She hadn’t touched a piece of gold in years. There was just no need for it anymore. She stared at the barkeep, her tears of joy almost seamlessly shifting to tears of despair.

“Please, sir,” she begged him. “I haven’t eaten in…” she couldn’t even remember. She frowned and unbuckled her sheath, setting it on the bar. “I’ll trade this.”

As the barkeep examined the sheath she looked around, acutely aware of the scene she was making. She blushed, trying to hunch herself down as small as possible. The tavern was almost silent.

The barkeep shook his head. “I dunno what kinda sword you got, miss, but this wouldn’t be worth anything ta me. It’s got a weird shape.” He pushed it back across the counter. “No gold, no food.”

She frantically searched through her clothes looking for something, anything. She slammed a hunk of metal down on the table. A blue butterfly mask, edged with gold. “What about this?”

The rest of the tavern had evidently lost interest, and the noise of the evening picked up yet again. The barkeep nodded. “Looks fancy. Wha’s it made of?”

“Just steel, but the edge is real gold.”

“Hm. Alright, I’ll getcha something to eat.”

Lucina dug voraciously into her food, reveling in the unparalleled joy of it all. She stuffed half a roll of bread into her mouth and washed it down with a full pint of ale before turning her attention to a steaming bowl of stew. It was thick and hearty, real beef and vegetables. She wolfed it down and poured the remaining broth down her throat.

She ordered another pint of ale.

She could scarcely believe what was happening. It was like a dream. As her drinks began to fuzz up her mind, she simply accepted the fact that she had no idea why she was here. It didn’t matter anymore. Wherever this was, it was better than Grima’s conquered territory. Just once, she remembered a flash of information. A thought that someone else should have been here too. Friends she couldn’t quite remember.

It vanished in a haze of self-indulgence, her desire to solve the mystery far outweighed by her desire to eat and drink and feel the worldly pleasures that she had not for far, far too long.

 

-

 

Corrin stared at his shaking hands, trying to will himself to stand up. The water had grown cold as the sun set, and now, with a canopy of stars overhead, he felt the warmth being sapped from his body. He had waded out into the lake every night since she disappeared, hoping. Praying. But it was pointless. He knew she was gone. He swiped at the water, scattering his reflection.

Victory should have felt good. They won. Garon was defeated, peace restored to the land. And yet, he felt nothing but emptiness and sorrow.

He knelt in the water.

“Please,” he whispered. “Please, Azura. I…I need you,” he choked back tears. “I…” he wiped his eyes.

He hadn’t slept since the night he killed Xander. Murdered his brother in cold blood. And he knew he was responsible for Elise, too. Not just them, either, but everyone who had died. All the needless bloodshed, all the violence, and now…his one constant was gone. His strength, his love. The woman who had held fast, standing by his side through all danger, though all heartbreak, through all victory.

He had ripped his family apart, and in the end he still couldn’t save her.

He gasped for breath and plunged himself into the cold water before wading back to shore, collapsing in a shivering heap in the dirt. He curled up, wrapping his wet cape around himself, sobbing.

He felt so lost. He couldn’t stay in Nohr – everything reminded him of them. And he knew Leo resented him for it. Camilla as well, though she had vanished, nowhere to be found. Corrin wished he could do the same.

Hoshido somehow felt worse – seeing his family be so happy and watching the kingdom rebuild itself. It felt so hollow, so forced, since he knew that there was another side to the coin. Every smile on Sakura’s face, every word of stern praise from Ryoma, every display of affection from Hinoka made him remember. Remember the family that he killed.

And now he simply wandered from place to place. Nohr didn’t want him, Hoshido didn’t need him. He only knew two worlds – his tower back in Nohr, a world of isolation and misery; and the war, an endless cavalcade of pain and violence. He had no place in this world.

He hugged himself tighter, knowing that sleep wouldn’t come.

 

-

 

On the other side of the world, in a warm inn bed, half-drunk and stuffed to the gills, Lucina giggled. She wasn’t sure when the last time she had been drunk was, but she certainly was enjoying it now. She let out a sigh, nuzzling her pillow. It smelled a little funny, but she didn’t mind. It wasn’t a tent, and it wasn’t outside on the ground. It was the best evening she could remember. Which wasn’t saying much, since she could only remember one evening, but it still had to be the best, right?

She knew she hadn’t had these pleasures in a long, long time. And that was enough.

As she drifted off to sleep, she couldn’t help but feel some nagging sensation in the back of her mind. Something important. Something urgent.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> A regular update schedule? What's that? 
> 
> Sorry, I'm balancing too many concurrent projects and the holiday break is killin' me because thats how it goes sometimes  
> Anyway, thanks for reading!


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